Many Moons Pass, Four Months Flashes By
"Haaa… almost done, I think. Three thousand four hundred sixty-seven… sixty-eight… sixty-nine… and… three thousand four hundred seventy."
He collapsed against the Great Tree, breath ragged. Dirt clung to his skin like guilt. "I was lucky to find so many bodies still intact… but I didn't expect so many of us to be living here.." His voice was hoarse. "Some were just... dust. Bones too fragile to lift without crumbling. And still—no sign of the Chief."
He glanced around the cleared ruins. Even with his child's body, he'd managed to shift the rubble into one towering heap. His hands, raw and bleeding, knew every stone.
"The village is… quiet now. Open. Plenty of room to run, I guess." He looked over the scorched patches of earth where homes once stood. "Will anyone ever rebuild? No. No, what am I thinking…"
His muttering was constant. It kept him sane—or close to it. He had cried rivers. He had buried toddlers with missing limbs. Infants burned to bone. He had wept until rage took over, then punished himself—starving, striking his own face until he bled.
He labored without end. Storm or sun, dawn or dusk—he dug. 4 months straight without stopping.
At last, he reached the village entrance—flanked by twin mountains, like silent sentries. Between them lay a strange hill, overtaken by grass and roots. He approached with trembling steps. Wildflowers, red and yellow, danced gently in the breeze atop the mound.
"…Chief," he whispered, kneeling.
He rested his back against the grassy burial, breathing it in.
"They're waiting for you, you know. Back home." His voice cracked. "I'm sorry. I let them kill you… the same humans who killed all of us."
Then, solemnly, he placed his hands in his lap. "I promise you… I will kill. I will torture—I will break every human who flies that rotten banner. They'll suffer."
He chuckled, then. The kind that makes birds go quiet.
"But not all humans. Not unless I feel like it." His eyes widened. He clutched his head, pulling at strands of white hair until they floated like ghosts into the wind.
"Hahaha… hahh… going insane, aren't I?"
He ripped apart the floral shroud of the Chief's grave with trembling hands. "You don't belong out here. You belong with your people."
Bone by cracked bone, he carried the remains back to the Great Tree. Burn marks and splinters marred the skeleton—but he didn't care. If the Chief had been mocked in death, then Sirus would repay the cruelty tenfold. A thousandfold.
He smiled. A hollow, frozen thing. His body swayed as he walked—thin, nearly skeletal. White hair matted with filth. Claws black with earth and gore. The reek of death clung to him like a second skin.
He buried all 3,471 with his bare hands.
Where bones remained, he dug deep and planted seeds fallen from the Great Tree. One grave, one tree. Spaced just far enough for roots to breathe—but close enough that, one day, the branches would entwine and form a cathedral of green and memory.
Already, the first thousand graves had begun to sprout.
When he buried the Chief, Sirus laid his head on a root and finally—finally—slept.
The Next Morning
"What's next…" he murmured. "That flag. The one they carried. Some kingdom must own it."
He stood, bones creaking. At the river, he stripped without ceremony and stepped into the cold. No shiver. No protest. He scrubbed the filth from his clothes, then his hair—watching the silver return with ease.
"Still silky after all that…" he muttered. "I need a brush, though."
His clothes hung drying on a branch. "Shame I outgrew my underwear. The shirt still fits. Shorts too, for now."
He considered. "I could steal clothes from the humans. If there aren't knights… maybe from the ones who caged me. That village girl might follow again, though."
Even with no one around, he hid behind trees to dry. Some decency remained, despite the madness. His body dried quickly—another gift, or curse, of being demon.
He returned to the Great Tree and retrieved his bone blade and knife. No scabbard. He carried them in his hands.
"I need food… water. Haven't eaten properly in weeks." He stretched his tired limbs, eyes narrowing with cold resolve.
"Let's see what's on the menu today."